North South Interconnector Public Meeting On New Aontú Bill
A Public Meeting will be held this week on a new Aontú Bill that seeks to underground the North South Interconnector. It will be on line and held on Thursday the 20th of May at 7.30pm. Those interested in attending should email peadartoibin@gmail.com.
Aontú Leader Peadar Tóibín TD, the author of the Bill has stated that clock is ticking down on this issue. "We need to bury these cables once and for all. We have over 10 years of talk from the establishment parties and yet the project continues to proceed. The Aontú Bill, will, if passed force the government to undertake a comprehensive assessment of the full cost and damage of over grounding the cables. This has never been done before. It would, I believe force the government to underground the North South Interconnector".
"In order to improve the chances of getting this bill through the Dáil in time I invited each TD in Meath to cosign this Bill. This is very unusual for any party to do, as usually party self interest means parties who develop such Bills keep it to themselves. However this issue is too important. We need to get as many people behind it as possible. I have requested through the media, emailed, phoned and texted each TD in the county asking them to sign this Bill and shockingly out of the 6 TDs only 1 TD other than myself has signed it to date. No FF or FG TD has signed the Bill. Wednesday the 19th is the last date that a TD can sign this Bill as it will be debated on the floor of the Dail on Tuesday the 25th of May".
"FF and FG have spoken for possibly hundreds of hours at public meetings and debates on the North South Inter Connector and yet when it comes to putting their signature where their mouth is, they refuse to do it so far".
“The Government seek to construct 409 pylons, up to 51 metres high, caring 400,000 volts through Meath, Cavan and Monaghan, Armagh and Tyrone. There will be a minimum distance of 13 metres to homes allowed.
"The Public Meeting this week will seek to build public support for the Bill and put pressure on the government. There are significant fears with regards threats to health especially threats of cancers and childhood leukaemia. There are fears with regards damage to value of homes, farms and business. The tourism, agriculture, the blood stock industry are all extremely alarmed".
"The truth is that technology that the government seek to build is becoming out of date. It has been superseded by new underground technology that can do the same job. Indeed new underground lines with similar distances are being built between Germany and Belgium within budget".
"This Bill seeks to facilitate analysis of the both undergrounding and overgrounding the North South Interconnector in terms of technical performance, economic impact, environmental preference, socioeconomic impact and deliverability. The Bill will facilitate analysis of the cost of the North South Interconnector in terms of damage to house prices, property prices and damage to local business, enterprise and Agri-businesses".
"This Bill differs from previous PMBs in that the terms of reference cannot be manipulated politically
